Elizabeth Ewen's Argument Analysis

Many different audiences have always consumed different forms of media but what are the effects of these forms of media on the audience that consumes them? In the article “City Lights: Immigrant Women and the Rise of the Movies the author Elizabeth Ewen focused on “the interaction between the social experiences of immigrant women and the images that confronted them in their daily lives” (Ewen 1980). By using multiple articles from the time period and analyzing their images and content we can determine if Ewen’s argument was viable. Throughout this topic we will be focusing on multiple issues from Motion Picture Classic Magazine. First, lets begin with the analyzing the multiple articles within the magazines. According to Kathryn Fuller in her book “Major Problems in American Popular Culture” the focus was always on the matter of the publishers of fan magazines determining that the audience is likely to be more female than male, which influenced not only the content but perhaps even the price”. (Fuller 1996) As a result what we see in many of the issues of Motion Picture Classic Magazine are primarily articles and advertisements catered toward females. In the 1920, December issue of

In the August 1930 issue of Motion Picture Classic Magazine there is an entire article entitled “How To Make a Man”. While the article is short it manages to say a lot to the audience the magazine was trying to reach at the time. The article itself depicts two women they are the same person but with different personalities. The actress in the picture is Lila Lee the article specifically tells women to either be Lila Lee who is the depiction of the light hearted innocent women or you can be the “little devil”. The article goes into detail telling women to tilt there head a certain way or give a certain look in order to be the a specific type of women a certain man would